How to Successfully Launch an RPA Strategy

Companies are changing the way they work by implementing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in their day-to-day tasks. Rather than substituting humans, RPA enables an elevation of human capital by eliminating repetitive, rule-based business processes. In this way, employees can focus their time on working on “human” tasks that require emotional intelligence to address specific issues.

While understanding its benefits is easy, companies still need to make sure they have a plan in place on how to create tangible results after introducing RPA to their business structure.

Below are 5 tips for organisations to help them make a successful and valuable transition to RPA.

1. Calculate your ROI after RPA

Companies have huge potential to grow their ROI once they automate their process by eliminating human errors and improving overall compliance and data integrity. 86% of companies who implemented RPA said their productivity met or exceeded their initial expectations. RPA gives employees the opportunity to use their emotional intelligence more, companies said their teams were happier and could dedicate a lot of effort on customer service or in addressing specific issues they didn’t have time to allocate to before.

2. Focus on human capital & intelligence

When adopting RPA, many organisations identify processes they think are easy to automate based on their experience or other companies’ stories. However, a new business strategy should be in place to make sure an organisation understands where current employee’s skills can be reallocated. Look at where they can use their creative problem solving and critical thinking and how their emotional intelligence will have an impact on the business after RPA is implemented.

3. Get advice from a team of experts

When the company has a clear business structure in mind, experts can give training to the various teams involved, show how the different processes work and make sure to leave clear guidance on how to control the RPA process. By doing so, employees can optimize their workflow and ultimately contribute to ROI.

4. Document the impact of RPA

Once the experts have guided the team and the main processes requiring automation have been identified, it is important for companies to document the overall impact of RPA in their daily activities. Consider the time required to fully implement RPA, the benefits of the implementation and the new areas and resources that can potentially emerge once the company understands how RPA can optimize workflows.

5. Present the final proposal

Last but not least, companies need to present a business plan that will prioritise RPA over other projects. The main reasons to justify this choice are:

Speed: RPA is able to complete tasks that are time-consuming for humans faster

Output: RPA automates long processes and therefore provides the opportunity for human capital to focus on its strengths

Quality improvement: RPA can eliminate human error when installed correctly in an organisation